Kutenai has an obviation system reminiscent of the systems found in Algonquian languages, in which at most one third person nominal in a clause is proximate and others are obviate. Although the behavior of proximate nominals within clauses and within texts reflects a special status for proximates as having some sort of "higher rank" than obviates, it is concluded that there is no evidence of any syntactic conditions governing obviation across clause boundaries apart from those that also apply within clauses, there can be no more than one proximate per sentence, and coreferential nominals must agree in obviation. In particular there is no evidence of any conditions reminiscent of "binding" conditions, or any conditions by which proximates are preferred in higher positions than obviates. (Contains 10 references.) (Author/MSE)